Cooking Lessons
by Suspicious Popsicle
Summary: Flynn can't cook. Flynn does not believe he can't cook. Flynn is an optimist. Mix these traits. Add one cooking class taught by Yuri. Let simmer. Results may vary. College Town AU. Fluri.
1. Part 1

A/N: Can you tell who I used as filler for Yuri's students? =D

This one is sickeningly sweet, at least in comparison to my norm. Or the first part is, anyway. At least Yuri's in a good mood.

I've put up a rough timeline for this set in my profile. For the most part, it doesn't really matter aside from a few small details and a bit of foreshadowing.

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are from _Tales of Vesperia_ and do not belong to me.

* * *

After careful consideration and the formulation and subsequent discarding of several other ideas, Flynn had come up with a plan that would allow him to spend more time with Yuri without interfering with Yuri's schedule. He'd been thinking about it for days, ever since the chicken dinner fiasco that had so unexpectedly highlighted some of the biggest issues that stood between them. Now, on a drizzly Thursday afternoon, Flynn was ready to put his plan into action. Clutching the plain, white apron he'd bought, Flynn walked into the Y. He was going to join Yuri's cooking class, whether Yuri liked it or not.

The receptionist directed him down the hall to the third door on the right. He found Yuri there but, as his boyfriend was currently in conversation with an older woman in a black business suit, Flynn slipped quietly into the room and found an empty seat on the second row.

It was a small classroom, with nine Formica-topped, two-person worktables set up facing one larger counter with a central stovetop. Behind that was a refrigerator, oven, microwave, sink, and dishwasher. There were five middle-aged women already present and chatting amongst themselves. They moved in to surround Flynn as he took a seat, hiding Yuri from sight.

"Hello. Good to see a fresh face. You're here for the cooking class?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good for you!" another one said, bopping him lightly on the arm. "We don't get many men in this class. Poor Yuri has to deal with the lot of us ogling him."

"'Ogling?'" Flynn looked from face to unfamiliar face, and tried to peer past their shoulders for a glimpse of Yuri and, hopefully, rescue.

"She's joking."

"Speak for yourself."

"It's good of you to take an interest in cooking, and I'm sure it'll be a relief to Yuri to have a student who isn't part of his little fan club."

Before Flynn could ask about _that_ interesting little tidbit, he was yanked backwards off his stool by the collar. When he looked, Yuri was focusing his smile on the group of women.

"We'll get started in a minute. I just need to have a word with my friend, here." With that, he dragged Flynn out into the hall and shut the door.

He had tied his hair into a high, tight ponytail and was wearing a dark red, long-sleeved shirt. It made for a striking contrast against his skin, and was one of Flynn's favorites on him. The black apron he wore was tied at the small of his back, strings trailing down, catching Flynn's eye and bringing to his attention Yuri's nearly-too-tight jeans. The combination made it a little difficult to focus at first when Yuri turned to him and started to speak.

"I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that apron is a gift for me, and that you are not here to try and join the class."

"I paid the fee. That means you have to teach me."

Yuri rolled his eyes. "You're supposed to be the good cop, here. Do you honestly intend to subject those poor, unsuspecting ladies to your cooking?"

"Knock it off. My cooking is not that bad. All it needs is a little improvement, and that's what I'm here for."

"'A little….' All right. If nothing else, this should be interesting. I want you up front, though, and don't do _anything_ unless I specifically tell you to do it."

Flynn couldn't help smiling over the little victory. It didn't hurt that he saw Yuri's expression soften in return before he turned quickly around and led them back into the classroom. As ordered, Flynn moved to a seat at the end of the first row while Yuri took his place behind the large counter.

"Mina, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like you to help Flynn out tonight."

One of the women, the one who had made the comment about ogling Yuri, came to sit next to him. She held out her hand for Flynn to shake.

"Mina Harper. Mina's fine. It is so good to finally meet you!"

"'Finally?'"

"All right, let's get started. Tonight, we're cooking Mexican. Everyone bring a bowl and utensils?"

The ladies held up dishes they'd brought from home, and Yuri nodded. He must have mentioned that during the last class, because the girl at the front desk hadn't said anything about needing to bring something aside from an apron.

"Flynn."

That was all the warning Yuri gave before throwing something straight at him. Flynn caught it easily, anyway. After so many years with Yuri, it was practically a reflex. He looked at the strange…vegetable? Fruit? …that Yuri had tossed him.

"We're starting off by mixing up some fresh guacamole. I've got chips so you can snack while I show you how to cook the rest of the meal. This is pretty simple. Just cut those suckers open, scoop out the good stuff, and mash it up with a little lemon and black pepper. You can add other ingredients for a different flavor."

As he spoke, he was tossing more of the rough little dark green things to his students, being much more careful about it when he threw to them. Flynn wasn't sure why Yuri had given him one in the first place. He didn't have anything to mix either in or with.

"Up here, Flynn." Yuri beckoned him to the front and pulled out a bowl and a spoon for him. "I know I told them they could add other things, but as for you…. Don't. Experiment."

He kept his voice low. Flynn supposed he ought to be grateful that Yuri apparently wasn't going to give him a hard time in front of the other students, but the lack of faith was still irritating. It had been years since he'd cooked for Yuri. Who was to say those early tries hadn't been flukes? Maybe he had improved. He'd taken up watching the cooking channel, figuring he'd be able to pick up some tips.

"It's an avocado, by the way."

"I knew that." Determined to impress Yuri, he returned to his station and put on his apron.

Back at the table he'd chosen, Flynn made quick work of gutting his avocado. His partner for the evening wasn't having such an easy time of it. Mina watched Yuri like a hawk as he sliced the fruit in half and scooped out the soft insides. When she tried, tongue sticking out in concentration, the knife slipped and she nearly took off the end of her thumb. A second attempt had the knife slicing though with such speed and force that it bounced off the counter and narrowly missed Flynn. He shot a quick glare at Yuri, wondering if this had been meant as revenge.

"Can I help?"

"Would you mind?" Mina laughed self-consciously. "I've never been very good in the kitchen."

She passed off the avocado and the knife, leaving Flynn wondering why he had never heard Yuri complain about anyone else's cooking. He had to be more skilled than Mina, but Yuri had never said anything about her. It was frustrating to know that Yuri had so little confidence in him that he'd pair him with a woman who couldn't even slice up an avocado.

When he'd finished helping out, Flynn looked around, curious to see if the rest of the class was at the same level. At the next table over, a blond woman who might have been Mina's sister was chatting with a friend. They'd grabbed a bag of chips and started snacking without having bothered to mix up their guacamole. Past them, sat a woman with short, blue-black hair taking notes while her partner switched back and forth between gazing at Yuri as he talked and concentrating fiercely on gutting her avocado.

The group seemed smaller now that they had settled at their own tables rather than being bunched all around him. It made Flynn wonder how well Yuri was being paid to teach the class. If he only earned based on the number of students, it hardly seemed worth his time.

Flynn noticed suddenly that the woman he'd seen Yuri speaking with earlier had disappeared. He wondered if she was a student that had quit, or someone else who worked at the Y. She had looked familiar, but he couldn't place where he had seen her before.

Setting that aside, he turned his attention back to what he was supposed to be doing. As he mashed and mixed, he followed Yuri's instructions _exactly_, although he couldn't help eying the collection of ingredients and spices gathered on the counter the whole while. He recognized several of them from those cooking challenge shows. Many were staples that always seemed to be in demand. Surely it wouldn't hurt to add a couple different things to make something more interesting than plain old guacamole.

When the other blond woman suddenly jumped up out of her seat and dragged her friend up to the counter to speak to Yuri, Flynn seized his chance. He snatched up a few things while the woman asked Yuri to repeat something he'd said during the last class for her friend. Flynn half-listened to Yuri's response as he set about incorporating his pilfered ingredients.

"When my grandmother taught me to cook, she always used to say that the most important ingredient was love. Any time she cooked, she really put her heart into it."

He'd never heard Yuri mention that before. For a moment, he wondered if it was just something that he'd made up to appeal to his students. It didn't seem like the sort of thing he would be expected to take seriously. However, Yuri had never spoken of his grandmother with anything aside from respect and fondness, and he genuinely missed her. It would have been more uncharacteristic for him to use her memory to make himself look good than for him to have taken her words to heart. After all, he did have a soft side, even if he mostly kept it hidden. It was too easy to forget that, sometimes.

"That smells great!" Flynn looked up to see Mina leaning over, smiling. "Mind if I try?"

"Please."

Smiling, he nudged the bowl closer to her as she grabbed a chip from the next table. Now Yuri would see. Maybe Flynn would even have come up with the best guacamole recipe out of the whole class. That would shut Yuri up for a while. He might even apologize for all his years of complaining about Flynn's cooking.

Mina took a little taste of the guacamole. Less than a minute later, all hell broke loose.

* * *

"You are something else," Yuri said, grinning.

"Shut up."

"No, really. That was amazing."

"Please shut up."

"The most dangerous ingredient in that room was a little bit of red pepper, and you managed to convince a trained paramedic that a woman had been poisoned."

"He had obviously been watching far too many CSI reruns."

Laughing, Yuri shook his head and took another sip of his drink. "Unbelievable."

"You've made your point, so can we stop talking about it?" Flynn slumped onto the bar and buried his face in his arms.

"You admit I was right?"

"Yes."

"I think this earned me another point on our scoreboard. You gonna add it when we get back?"

"Yes. Anything you want, just drop it."

Yuri laughed again and ordered another drink. It was his third, and he had nearly finished it before Flynn lifted his head and spoke up.

"I'd never heard you mention what your grandmother told you about cooking, before."

"No? Must've slipped my mind."

"She's the one who taught you to play piano, too, right? I don't remember her very well. Were you close?"

"Nana raised me. She did her best to make sure I turned out okay." He looked over at Flynn and smiled. "She was like you."

"How so?"

"Because she was."

"I don't get it."

"I know. It's okay."

Flynn sighed, recognizing the color in Yuri's cheeks as a warning that they should be leaving soon. He wouldn't have tagged along to Schwann's after the fiasco that had been his first cooking class if Yuri hadn't seemed cheerful enough despite the chaos Flynn's cooking had caused. He was regretting it now. He had long ago decided that Yuri shouldn't be allowed to drink if he wasn't in a good mood when he started, but Flynn could only take so much teasing. He really should have expected all the laughter at his expense that had been bubbling just below Yuri's calm exterior until a couple drinks loosened him up enough to let it out.

"I never told you how Nana died, did I?"

The words set warning bells ringing in Flynn's head, and he eyed Yuri anxiously.

"Maybe this isn't the best time for this."

Flynn didn't believe that Yuri felt things more deeply when he was drunk, just more easily. He lost the ability to calm himself down or push things to the back of his mind. Flynn didn't know how much of his past Yuri repressed or how healthy that was for him, but he did know that Yuri had been through a lot that most people would certainly want to forget. He'd seen before how alcohol could loose those unpleasant memories, and it seemed like bringing up Yuri's grandmother might have been a trigger for some of them.

"It was heart failure," Yuri said, staring into his empty glass. "I guess she gave too many pieces of it away when she cooked for people." He looked up suddenly at Flynn, eyes solemn and a little too bright. "You'll hold on to mine, though, right? So that I don't go giving it away."

Flynn sighed. "Unfortunately, that's the sign that you've had too much to drink." He tugged the glass out of Yuri's hands and motioned to the scruffy bartender to ask for the check. "Let's get you home."

"I'm okay, Flynn."

He shrugged off the helping hands and slid off his stool. Flynn watched him closely but, though he was moving a little more slowly than usual, Yuri wasn't unsteady. He probably wouldn't have any trouble with the walk home.

Still, he stayed close on the way back, enough that their hands occasionally brushed against each other. Yuri had practically said 'I love you' in the bar. It made Flynn feel a little giddy in between bursts of exasperation and disappointment over the fact that Yuri seemed unable to verbalize anything even close to those three words unless he'd been drinking. However, he couldn't deny being a little relieved, as well. Sure, they'd known each other forever, but they hadn't been dating all that long. Wasn't it too early for things like that?

On a whim, he caught Yuri's hand as it swung past. His fingers were cold, and Flynn tightened his grip a little as he tucked their hands into the pocket of his coat. Yuri didn't say anything, didn't even glance over, but the whole way home, his hand stayed curled around Flynn's, warming slowly.


	2. Part 2

A/N: It is important to remember, given some of the assumptions made in this half of the story and its placement in the College Town timeline, that I make use of the idea of an unreliable narrator. This is all coming from Yuri's headspace, and so the interpretations of certain events and conversations are skewed to his expectations and do not necessarily reflect the reality of the situation. I do this in almost all my stories, but it's unusually important here.

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are from _Tales of Vesperia_ and do not belong to me.

* * *

A long-sleeved shirt, a sweater, and an overlarge hoodie were still not enough to keep Yuri from shivering as he walked home beside Flynn, who didn't seem to have the same problem with the cold, wrapped comfortably as he was in a nice, long wool coat. It didn't help much that Flynn had grabbed Yuri's hand and twined their fingers together in the depths of his pocket. He probably thought it was romantic or something, but the growing warmth in Yuri's left hand only made him more aware of the cold, and raised waves of goose bumps over his arms and back. Somehow, though, he found that he didn't want to pull his hand free.

They were back at their apartment in less than ten minutes, another reason Schwann's was his favorite bar. The best place to drink was always one you could walk home from, particularly when you lived with someone like Flynn. Words like 'high-tolerance,' 'only the one,' or 'empty streets' didn't mean anything to him.

As soon as they were inside, he kicked off his shoes and made a beeline for the couch. He flopped down face first and sighed. When Flynn had shown up in his class, Yuri had figured he was in for an interesting night. He hadn't counted on things going downhill so quickly. So much for that job.

He heard the rustle of cloth, and assumed Flynn was hanging up his coat. He was such a neat freak. After a few moments, Yuri felt a tug on his hoodie.

"Sit up, so I can hang this up."

"I'm not that drunk, Flynn." He muttered the words into the couch, but lifted his arms enough for Flynn to wrestle the hoodie off. Out of the cold night air, he didn't miss the extra layer so much.

Flynn was back again in no time, swatting at Yuri's feet. "Make some room."

He bent his knees long enough for Flynn to sit down, then dropped his legs back down over his lap, trapping him. He laughed a little as Flynn sighed and rested warm hands on Yuri's calf.

"Who was that woman you were talking with before class? The one who came back during all the commotion."

"All the commotion you caused?" He laughed again. "You owe me a point."

"I know. Answer my question. I feel like I've seen her before."

"Vicky Heurassein."

"Heura…Estelle's mother?"

"Yeah. She runs that place."

That was how he'd gotten the job in the first place. It had been Estelle's idea after she'd been over for a few meals he'd cooked. She had spoken with her mother and gotten the okay to start a cooking class, then come to Yuri, asking him to be the instructor. It had worked out all right for a while, but attendance had been dropping, and Mrs. Heurassein had always been upfront with him about the conditions for maintaining the class. If he couldn't generate enough students to make it financially viable, it was going to be cancelled, no matter if he was her daughter's friend or not.

It had annoyed him a little bit at first that she'd automatically suspected he'd asked Estelle to get him the job. He wasn't about to turn down another source of income, though, so he'd swallowed his pride and worked out a couple lessons to start with. He'd even gotten Estelle to help him make a couple posters to hang at the Y advertising the class.

At first, things had actually gone pretty well. He'd even managed to add a tidy sum to his savings. After a while, though, interest had started to decline until he was left with a group of only four women who continued to show up. It wasn't enough to warrant keeping the class running, and he'd known it. He was only surprised that Mrs. Heurassein had waited so long to tell him he had two weeks to bring in more people or hand in his apron, so to speak.

Mina's little accident had probably been the final straw. Strangely, he couldn't bring himself to care much about it, probably because of the drinks. Raven was always good enough to mix them a little strong for him.

"What did she want to talk to you about?"

"Class is being cancelled."

"_What_? Why didn't you say something? Is it my fault? I can go explain." When he tried to get up, Yuri braced his legs to keep him from moving.

"Sit down. 'S not your fault." He twisted to look at Flynn. "There haven't been enough people interested. I knew it was gonna happen."

"Why didn't you ever say anything? I could have—"

"Forget it." He let himself slump back onto the cushions.

"But you worked so hard. I thought you really enjoyed having that class."

Yuri laughed. Flynn always thought things like that mattered. It was funny as hell.

"I'll find something else I like. Maybe I'll get a job in a restaurant."

Might as well. There was no way he'd be able to save up for culinary school at the rate he was going. Maybe job experience would make up for it. He'd heard of people who ended up getting the position they wanted through experience rather than education. Yuri was willing to work for it. All he needed was for the people hiring to see that.

"Are you sure that's what you want to do? Why not look at earning a degree from a culinary school?"

"No money. No scholarship. No loans." He hadn't been able to catch a break in that direction. Maybe it just wasn't meant to be.

"Yuri…." He sighed. "I'm sorry."

"Nothing for you to be sorry about."

If anyone should be sorry, it ought to be Yuri. He hadn't amounted to anything after all.

Yuri had no memories of his parents, only of the grandmother who had raised him, and she had almost never talked about either of them. He wouldn't even have known if she was related to him through his mother or his father, had she not spoken of Yuri's mother to him one time.

He remembered her words clearly. "Your mother was a girl who made a great many poor choices," she'd said. "However, whatever else she might have done, she had you. You are her redemption."

Whatever it was Nana had expected him to do to redeem his wayward mother hadn't happened. He'd barely graduated high school, he was working two dead end jobs while going to community college for a degree he would never use, and he'd probably just lost the one job he'd actually enjoyed. It was hardly a list of accomplishments to make up for the sins of his mother.

The pleasant apathy he'd been filled with at the bar was fast disappearing. He rolled onto his back and looked up at Flynn, who was frowning, lost in thought, as he rubbed his hands absently over Yuri's legs.

Flynn loved him. Yuri knew that well enough, and the thought helped relieve some of his melancholy. Aside from his Nana, Flynn was the only other person who had ever really loved him, and the only other person who had ever held Yuri's heart. It should have scared him, but it didn't. Flynn was too loyal, too _good_ to ever break Yuri's trust. Good old steadfast, predictable, boring Flynn.

Yuri laughed, and the suddenness of it caught Flynn's attention, pulling it back to the present.

"What's so funny?"

"Thinking about you. And Nana."

"You're drunk."

"Maybe a little." What was the harm in it, anyway? He felt good, and after the night he'd had, he deserved to feel good.

Rolling his eyes, Flynn slipped out from underneath his legs. He moved to stand over Yuri and offered him a hand.

"Come on. Bedtime."

With a grin, Yuri grabbed the offered hand and yanked. He'd wanted to pull Flynn right down on top of him, but Flynn had caught himself with one hand against the back of the couch. It didn't matter much. He was close enough for Yuri to stretch up and kiss him before he could right himself.

For just a second, Flynn hesitated. It was only a second, though, and in the next moment, he was easing himself down into a seat on the couch, leaning over so as not to break the kiss. Yuri twisted and scooted as far back as he could to make room, and ended up curled around Flynn like a giant cat. He laughed at the thought, and Flynn huffed, moving again so that he was lying along the couch pressed up against Yuri, one arm wrapped around him to hold them close or to keep from falling off. He kissed Yuri until the laughter faded out, brief soft kisses over his cheeks and forehead, eyelids and lips.

Flynn loved him in a _very_ different way from his Nana, but it was unconditional, or had to be at that point. Yuri would take what happiness he was given and, by most accounts, he'd been afforded more than his fair share. Anything else he needed he could work for. He wasn't the type to give up over a few setbacks. One day he was sure to realize his Nana's hopes for him. He had to believe that.


End file.
